The Clothworkers' Company 1500-1688

Fenchurch Street

The Company received property on Fenchurch Street from four separate benefactors – Stephen Lound, Roger Gardiner, John Lute and John Bayworth. Lound (d.c.1520), Citizen and Clothworker, bequeathed property to the Company in Fenchurch Street and Billiter Lane (in the parish of All Hallows Staining). His surviving will makes no reference to the properties that he gave to The Clothworkers’ Company. It is most likely that a further will relating to his property was proved at the Court of Hustings, but has not survived. It does appear, however, that Lound instructed the Company to hold an annual obit in his name at St. Martin Outwich, as part of the conditions of his property bequest.[1] Roger Gardiner (d.c.1520), Citizen and Fuller, bequeathed property in Billiter Lane (in the parish of All Hallows Staining) and Fenchurch Street to the Fullers’ Company. Two separate wills survive for Gardiner, in which he bequeaths the properties at Billiter Lane and Fenchurch Street to the Company separately, and with different instructions.[2] In his second will, also dated 31 October 1520, Gardiner gave six tenements in the parish of Allhallow Staining to the Company of Fullers.[3] The properties were located in the Fenchurch Street area. He gave specific instructions to the Company to use the rental profits to pay for an annual obit in the parish church of St. Martin Outwich for Stephen Lound, and his wife, Maud.[4]

The third benefactor, John Lute (d.1586), Citizen and Clothworker, bequeathed property in Cateaton Street (in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry), Cornhill (in the parish of St. Michael) and Fenchurch Street to The Clothworkers’ Company. Lute bequeathed the properties to The Clothworkers’ Company with a series of conditions relating to the incomes from the properties and their charitable uses.[5] These included the use of the monies generated from rents and fines for loans to five young male householders of the Company for the term of three years; to preach a sermon in his name in the church of St. Michael in Cornhill on the feast of St. Luke the evangelist every year; and to select twelve poor men and twelve poor women to receive gifts of clothing on the day of the sermon each year.[6] The fourth benefactor, John Bayworth (d.1623) bequeathed his messuage or tenements in the parish of St. Mary Fenchurch and St. Gabriel Fenchurch in Fenchurch Street, which he had purchased from Walter Saunders, gentlemen.[7] At the time of making his will, the properties were leased to John Browne, Clothworker and Thomas Shotten, Merchant Taylor for an annual rent of £10. Bayworth’s grant to the Company came with a set of annual conditions.[8] The Company had to undertake to pay an annual stipend of 20s. to Christ’s Hospital for the education of poor children.[9] The Company received further instruction to pay 13s. 4d. to the poor people inhabiting the almshouses in the parish of Farnham, Surrey each year. [10]

The first reference to Company property at Fenchurch Street in the Court Orders came in 1546, when the Company entered negotiations with Davy Seymer regarding a lease of the Great Place at Fenchurch Street. In July 1546, Seymer received a lease of the property for twenty-one years, on condition of the payment of £5 annual rent and the furnishing of two bucks of the season to the Hall on feast days.[11] Seymer appeared again in the Court Orders on 16 August 1546, when he returned to Court to ask for six days to consider the Company’s offer of the lease.[12] He eventually accepted the Company term’s with the sealing of his lease noted in the records in November 1546.[13] By the 1550s, as more property began to be accrued on Fenchurch Street, the Company undertook regular surveys of the physical state of the properties. In January 1557, Company viewers acknowledged problems at Fenchurch Street including that ‘the barbers house [lacked] tiling, also the joiners house [lacked] tiling and the gutter [was] broken whereby the principals before decayed, and the capper house for lack of tiling [rotted] the principals’.[14] The viewers suggested that the houses should have ‘[been] repaired by Henry Fayrefeld who [had] them by lease’.[15] Three properties at Fenchurch Street were also leased in November 1557. The Company agreed to grant the lease of three tenements to John Evans for twenty-one years at an annual rent of £8 and on payment of a £40 fine.[16] Under the agreement, the Company undertook to bear the cost of all the repairs to the property.[17] The following week, Evans returned to the Company Court and promised to reglaize the properties at Fenchurch Street at his own cost. In return, he was allowed to lease one of the tenements, beside Iremonger Lane, to Mr. Surbutt at a rent of £3 a year for the term of his life.[18]

The Fenchurch Street tenements continued to be included in the annual viewing of Company properties, exposing numerous defects and necessary repairs. In April 1562, for example, the viewers determined that a tenement leased by Mr. Smart, for example, had both a broken gutter and numerous broken rafters, leaving the property in a state of decay.[19] The house held by Mr. Wytham also exposed issues in tiling and broken rafters, while both Mr. Nedehim and Mr. Glasyer’s houses lacked tiling.[20] The house leased to Mr. Surbutt had problems with the principal timbers, while Mr. Grynkyng’s house had a sink and pavement, which were actually sinking.[21] During the 1560s, the decaying condition of the properties at Fenchurch Street were not the only problems facing the Company. In January 1564, for example, the Company entered into dispute with Mr. John Johnson, who had taken up residence in a tenement leased to Mr. Henry Fayrefield, who had recently died.[22] Johnson had failed to meet the rent payments, and the Company took action to remove him from the property, abating 10s. from his rent arrears.[23] Fayrefield’s tenement came under scrutiny in the Court Orders again in March 1564, when Alderman Allen petitioned the Company for a lease of the tenement and that was formerly leased to Mr. Glasyer, for Alice Brykned.[24] On foot of the petition, Brykned received a lease of the two tenements for twenty-one years at 6s. annual rent and a £20 fine.[25] Brykned undertook to make all necessary repairs to the property.[26] The repair of the properties at Fenchurch Street continued to be part of lease agreements throughout the 1560s. In 1565, when Thomas and Margaret Hyggins received a twenty-one year lease of the property formerly granted to William Wytham, the conditions of the lease included the clause that the new leaseholders had to repair the property.[27] Despite the actions of the Company to improve the properties at Fenchurch Street, problems persisted. The 1569 survey, for example, exposed that three new houses at Fenchurch Street lacked tiling, and the viewers had issued warnings to the tenants to repair the properties.[28] The problems continued in the 1570s, when as late as 1577, the surveyors still reported a lack of both tiling and rafters at a tenement leased to Widow Corke, and a privy that needed to be emptied at the houses of their tenants, Grinkin and Stringer.[29]

In 1577, Thomasine Evans, the widow of John Evans, the leaseholder of three of the Company’s tenements at Fenchurch Street came to Court and offered ‘londes to this house to this her entente to perfourme the Covennants of an Indenture of lease made to the saide Mr Evanns deceased by this house of certen Tenementes in ffanchurche streete according to a Covennante of the same Indenture’.[30] Thomasine Evans later became a property benefactor of the Company in her own right, bequeathing properties at Crutched Friars to the Company in 1596.[31] Evans continued to hold the properties granted to her husband through into the 1580s. In 1581, for example, the Court Orders noted a new lease to Mrs. Evans of three tenements and the rooms over the gate of the great place at Fenchurch Street.[32] Evans undertook to pay an annual rent of £8 for and during her natural life and to keep the properties in good repair.[33] Two of the tenements were occupied at this point by Richard Wyllys and Mr. Herdson.[34] In February 1588, the position of the tenants in Evans’ properties was secured when the Company reached an agreement that all tenants of her tenements would continue to live there for five years after her death, paying the same rents that they paid to her.[35] In 1582, another new lease of a Fenchurch Street tenement was granted to William Hollygrave, Beadle of the Yeomanry.[36] Hollygrave’s tenement had previously been leased to Widow Cooke, and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Hollygrave’s lease sought to address the problems by embedding the repairs as part of the conditions of the lease.[37] Under its terms, Hollygrave was expected to construct a cellar in the tenement and to build the tenement one and a half storeys higher.[38] In 1586, Hollygrave received a new lease of the tenement for a twenty-one year term in respect of ‘his great expense in building of the tenement’.[39] By 1600, Hollygrave had died and his property was leased to John Durand.[40]

The turn of the seventeenth century gave rise to a flurry of new leases at Fenchurch Street. In June 1602, John Yeomans took a new twenty-one year lease of a tenement at Fenchurch Street at a rent of 40s a year and a fine of £20.[41] In February 1605, Arthur Harrison received a twenty-eight year lease of ‘the tenements in Fenchurch Street and Billiter Lane, and the vaults recently built by him’.[42] In May 1605, Hugh Richardson received a twenty-one year lease of Carman’s House at the Philpot Lane end of Fenchurch Street.[43] Richardson undertook to pay an annual rent of £4 and a fine of £50, with the additional clause of having to spend £60 on rebuilding the property added to the terms of his lease.[44] Surveys of properties at Fenchurch Street conducted by the Company also led to further instructions to repair properties being issued by the Company. In June 1605, for example, Mr. Domblelowe, a tenant in a Company property at Fenchurch Street was instructed to ‘make a new window over the cellar, [and] to amend his tiling and plastering at the guilt end’.[45] In the following month, the Company also issued instructions to their tenant Jacob de Bees ‘to make a new roof on the back part of [his] house in Fenchurch St being much sunk and ready to full and to put in a new plate in the entry nexte the street and to amend and do the same within the time limited by his lease’.[46] By March 1612, however, de Bees had not undertaken sufficient repairs at his property.[47] The Court Orders noted how he was once again ‘warned about the defects in reparations found at the tenement in the said last general view’.[48]

By Treswell’s Survey in 1612, the Company had significant property holdings on Fenchurch Street.[49] These properties were based on the south side of the street, the north side of the street and adjoining Philpot Lane and Billiter Lane.[50] Five tenements were located on the south side of the street; three tenements adjoined Philpot Lane; three tenements, a garden and tennis court were located on the north side of the street; and one large messuage with two gardens, an entry and a court into Fenchurch Street were located next to Billiter Lane.[51] This property also comprised two further tenements. The properties ranged in size from three to five storeys.[52] On the south side of Fenchurch Street, four of the five properties comprised three storeys, with the fifth, containing four storeys. Jacob de Bees’ property, for example, was one of these three storey tenements.[53] Treswell described de Bees’ house as comprising a second storey with a chamber over the shop, three other chambers, and a workhouse or garret and a third storey with a garret room.[54] A cellar was also described beneath the shop. By far the largest and most ornate property described by Treswell was the ‘capital messuage’ adjoining Billiter Lane, which was in the tenure of Sir Edward Darcy.[55] The property comprised three storeys. The second storey contained a chamber over a little room in the cellar, a larger chamber with a chimney, a parlour, a staircase, a chamber over a buttery and nine other chambers. The floor also contained a long gallery. The third storey comrpised a long gallery of 68 foot in length and 15½ foot in breadth.[56]

Several of the properties on Fenchurch Street were leased again in 1614. In July 1614, Thomas Chauncey, for example, received a lease of the Golden Lyon, Fenchurch Street, which had previously been held by Hugh Richardson.[57] Three weeks later, Chauncey was back at Court requesting permission to hold back the payment of £80 of his fine for six months.[58] The Company, however, requested him to make the full payment of £120 without delay or otherwise they would quash the lease agreement.[59] The Company’s attention had returned to Jacob de Bees’ tenement. By 1616, the Company had leased the property to Richard Hayes.[60] Under the terms of his lease, Hayes had accepted the task of repairing the property, which the Company described as ‘ruinous’ on the removal of de Bees.[61] In December 1616, the Company called de Bees to Court to question him ‘about the repayring of the same’.[62] He asked the Company permission for respite until after Christmas to give him an opportunity to view the property and determine his course of action.[63] By April 1617, the Court Orders noted that the Company took action against Hayes, ‘for suffering the said tenement to run into ruin and not repairing the same as he ought to have done’.[64] They determined ‘that he should be prosecuted without delay’.[65]

By March 1618, however, the Company had again leased de Bees’ former tenement. Robert Hungate, Mercer, made suit to the Company to take a lease of the tenement.[66] The Court Orders noted that by the time of his suit ‘the back part’ of the property had already been demolished.[67] The Company offered Hungate a lease for fifty-one years at an annual rent of £5 and paying a fine of 100 marks.[68] Hungate undertook to pay 1,000 marks of lawful money to rebuild the property.[69] The lease stated that Hungate must ‘build the forefront thereof of brick and to perform the rest of the buildings all of oken timber saving the fyr timber already, provided which is to bestowed in the part according to such reasonable startlings as shalbe appointed and peruse unto him by this Company’.[70] By May, the Company had appointed viewers to examine ‘the plott of ground in Fenchurch Street late granted to Robert Hungate & to consider of his request for license to set the end of his building upon that part of the garden wall belonging to his house which adjoins the parcell of ground concerning the refering of so much ground out of the same as may for the enlargement of the hall in case this Company at any time shall want to enlarge it’.[71] By February 1619, Hungate had received a new lease of the ‘tenement new builded by him’.[72]

By May 1619, Hungate had reached an agreement with the Company to take a lease of another property in Fenchurch Street.[73] This property, held by James Sutton, was to be granted on similar terms to Hungate’s previous lease.[74] The Company offered him the lease for a fifty-one year term, once he had paid £20, reached an agreement with Sutton for the remaining term of his lease and agreed to rebuild the tenement.[75] He was also to pay £4 a year in rent. [76] The repair of properties continued to be a key concern for the Company on Fenchurch Street throughout the 1620s. In September 1622, John Yeomons, Merchant Tailor, tenant of a tenement in Fenchurch Street, sought, and was granted, licence from the Company ‘to take down a little room in the house, the third room from the street used for a curing house for the bettering and increase of the light of the other rooms of the house’.[77] In July 1624, George Dawson, Clothworker, received a lease of a tenement in Fenchurch Street, which had previously been held by William Jennings.[78] Part of Dawson’s lease agreement included a repair clause, seeking him to keep his tenement ‘in sufficient repair’ throughout the term of his lease.[79] As late as 1634, Mrs. Yeomans, the widow of John Yeomans, continued to undertake repairs at the property, petitioning the Court for permission to pull down the shed, which lay within the yard of her tenement.[80] Furthermore, in the same month, John Jacob, tenant at Fuller’s Hall, Fenchurch Street, received a new lease, under which he was expected to rebuild the tenement in ‘brick and stone and good new oak timber’ to the value of £800.[81] In 1637, Jacob received a new lease of the property, on the basis that he had actually spent over £1200 on rebuilding the property, rather than the £800 required.[82] An additional, updated schedule was appended to his new lease to include changes made by Jacob to wainscott and other implements in the house.[83]

Further new leases were granted throughout the 1640s. In October 1642, a new lease was granted to Mathew Carbreth, for a twenty-five year term. [84]Carbreth agreed to pay an annual rent of £4, a fine of £40 and surrender his old lease.[85] Similarly, John Butler, received a new lease of his new tenement in Fenchurch Street for twenty-three years, paying an annual rent of 20s. and a fine of £14.[86] In 1645, Nicholas Mugge received a twenty-four lease at 40s. a year and paying a fine of £13 6s 8d.[87] His lease also sought the surrender of his old lease.[88] In April 1648, Richard Elkin made suit and was granted a new lease of his house in Fenchurch Street.[89] The lease described how the property had been newly built. Under the terms of the lease, an inventory was to be undertaken of the wainscott, locks, keys, shelves, dresser boards, peticions, chimney pieces, iron bars, and pipes of lead.[90] In April 1649, William Kinge, Vintner, received a lease of the Fountain Tavern, Fenchurch Street for twenty-five years.[91] Kinge undertook to pay £5 a year in rent and a fine of £140.[92] Under the terms of his lease, Kinge also had to spend £100 on repairs to the property.[93] In January 1650, William Kinge was offered an addition of five years to his lease, if he gave the Company a good fat buck in season and paid the assessment and taxes on it.[94]

The granting of new leases continued throughout the 1650s and 1660s, with sporadic surveys undertaken by Company appointees to examine the properties and to mediate on disputes between neighbouring tenants. Many of the Fenchurch Street properties, however, were destroyed during the Great Fire of London. In December 1666, Mr. Ashbey, grocer, of Holborn, made suit for a new lease of two tenements that had been destroyed in the fire.[95] The Company refused to grant him the new lease, as they were not prepared to ‘treat with him, but when they were they would send for him’.[96] In February 1668, two tenants, Blount Sadler and Nicholas Mugge, received additions of years on their respective leases increasing their term to forty-one years.[97] In 1673, Mr. Joliffe appeared at Court on behalf of an orphan child of Mr. Ash, who was a tenant of the Company at the mansion at Fenchurch Street and two houses in Billiter Lane. He petitioned for a committee to examine the property, as it was out or repair and would need to be pulled down and rebuilt. [98] In July 1685, Mr. Ash appeared before the Court, making proposals regarding building on the ground in Fenchurch Street, of which he was tenant.[99] In January 1686, Ash appeared at Court again, where he received an answer regarding his building proposals. The Court determined that ‘they had considered of his proposals and found them so mean and slight that they had resolved to lay aside any further treaty with him and to admit of none until the lease should be within three years of expiration’.[100] Ash, as a result, took his lease. [101]

The Company properties at Fenchurch Street were completely rebuilt in the aftermath of the Fire. They remained in The Clothworkers' ownership and have recently been redeveloped to create 1 Fen Court [formerly 120 Fenchurch Street, completed in 2018]. [102] Roger Gardiner’s Fenchurch Street properties are also still part of the Company portfolio, as part of 46-50 Fenchurch Street and part of Clothworkers’ Hall.[103] John Lute’s property at 11-12 Fenchurch Street was sold in 1963.[104]

The Fenchurch Street properties were noted extensively in the Company accounts. Taken at twenty year intervals the monies accrued from the property can be noted. In 1600, the Company received a rental income of £38 19s 4d from Fenchurch Street.[105] There was no expenditure on the Fenchurch Street properties in this year. In 1620, the annual rental income from Fenchurch Street was £16, while no money was spent on the property in this year.[106] By 1640, the annual income from Fenchurch Street had risen to £66 5 s., with the annual expenditure noted as £10.[107] By 1660, the annual income was £77 6s. 8d. with expenditure reaching £15 3s.[108] By 1680, in the aftermath of the Great Fire, the Company were receiving c.£72 6s annually from the Fenchurch Street properties.[109] Their annual Fenchurch Street expenses in this year amounted to £15 2s. 6d.[110]

[107] CCA, Renter Warden Accounts, CL/D/5/8, Section 4, The Renter Warden accounts of William Harris, 1640, f. 2v and f. 13v. The income figures cannot be accurately calculated due to damage to the originals.